73 years
by HLGLPotter
Summary: a story covering the 73 years of hunger games before Katniss first enters the Arena
1. 1: The Reaping

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I stand in the crowded town square. We are here for the first ever Hunger Games reaping. They will select one boy and one girl from each district between the ages of 12 and 18 to enter the arena, were they will fight to the death. The last person alive will be crowned victor. They have created this sick game to remind the rebels that were responsible for the war last year that they will never be able to even pose a threat to the capital again. There is an escort for each district that will escort the tributes to the capitol, and if they make it, make home. Imagine getting chosen. You, in an arena, with 25 other tributes, and only one will survive. Wait no. that's wrong. District 13 was destroyed during the war. There will only be 24 tributes. And the worst part of the games, it's all televised, so the odds are your family will see you die.

"Happy Hunger Games!" calls out the district 5 escort, Elixa Klicker. See there`s another horrible part, they treat the whole thing like a holiday "well, you all know why we're here, it's the reaping of the first Hunger Games!" Wow, she really is over the top. And by the disgusted looks of the people around me, I'm not the only one that feels that way.

"well, ladies first" she says as she thrusts her ring clad hand into the big bowl over flowing with tiny slips of paper, 1 of which has my sisters name on it. I would be standing holding her hand right now, but they have us organized by age with the crying and yelling parents in the back "And the first ever female tribute for district 4 is….Kathleen Carpenter!"

This is so much harder than I thought it would be. I know Kathleen. And she`ll probably be the youngest tribute in the mix. She`s only 12. How could they possible send a 12 year old to their death? These evil people. How did they ever get in charge of a country? At least if I was chosen I would be of decent age. Well, no child is of decent age to do this, but more decent, 16. There is only one small twinge of happiness in me, that my sister Cara didn`t get chosen.

"And now gentlemen!" she makes just as big a show of swirling her hand around inside the glass bowl, and the slips of paper, one of which has my name on it "and the male tribute is…Alek Mansfield!"

No. this is not happening. No. this can`t be happening. No. my best friend James grabs me into a big bear hug and whispers in my ear "be brave, you can win this, do it for Cara, and play to your strengths" and then he lets go, and pushes me up to the podium, and my inevitable, immediate or not death.

"well, well, well" trills Elixa "tributes shake hands, shake hands" I reach out and grab Kathleen`s small trembling hand. I try for a reassuring squeeze, but I think it probably feels more like a menacing gesture. "Well, well, well, tributes into the justice building" she ushers us into the justice building. We walk through the building and out to the back were we get into a black car with dimmed windows. Even the car has installed cameras, which footage will be available to the general public, and most importantly the other tributes. Kathleen is crying silently, and I'm trying not to show emotion. If I act weak people will single me out as a weak opponent in the arena. We get out of the car at the train station, were cameras follow us as we board the train. Which is relaxingly camera-free. Elixa ushers us into the dining car, were she says she will explain as much as she can.

"So we will be on this train to the capital for the rest of today and most of tomorrow, then we will get off and you will be brought to the all-new Hunger Games training center, were you will be beatified by your stylists for an on the air interview, so people can decide if they want to sponsor you!" Now, I know your saying that isn`t too bad but she said in is one hyper squeaky rush.

"Sponsor us?" asks Kathleen, voicing the question in my head.

"Well, people in the capitol have the opportunity to donate money, medicine, food or whatever else they like to me, and I will have the ability to send it to you in the arena!" oh god, how is someone that happy? "For now you can go to your rooms, were you can write letters to your friends and family, that will be given to them if you die!" she still sounded happy when she was talking about us dying. Great Support.

Well, either way, I go to my room, intending to write letters to every person I possibly can, because it is very unlikely that I will come home. First I write a letter to Cara.

Cara,

I love you more than I can possibly say. Be brave. Mom will look out for you. And if you need anything, ask James. Don`t mope over me dying, and don1t let mom mope either. Be strong. Don`t blame the person who killed me, it's the capitol doing this to us not them. I love you so, so, so, so, much. Think of the happy times in life, not the sad ones.

Love from your brother,

Alek

I'm not very happy with my end result, and I think they`ll sensor out most of it anyway, but still, it`s something. Next I write to mom.

Mom,

Be brave. Be there for Cara, she`ll need you. I love you more than I can possibly say. If you need anything ask James and his family, this isn`t the time for pride, it's the time to work together and get through this rough patch of history, that hopefully won`t last very long. Don`t hold grudges against the other districts, even if one of their tributes kills me. This is the districts against the capitol, not the districts against the districts. They`re just trying to start discord among districts, so we can`t have another rebellion.

Remember I love you more than anything,

Alek

Well, they`ll definitely sensor out like, all of that, except maybe the first line. Next I write to James.

James,

I miss you already. If you're reading this, it means I'm dead. But whatever it looks like know I didn`t go down without a fight, I would never do that. Please to be there for Cara and mom, make sure there getting along. Don`t blame the person who killed me, blame the capitol. It's the time to work together and get through this rough patch of history, that hopefully won`t last very long. Don`t hold grudges against the other districts, even if one of their tributes kills me. This is the districts against the capitol, not the districts against the districts. They`re just trying to start discord among districts, so we can`t have another rebellion. Don`t do anything stupid.

Love your best friend,

Alek

Part of that was directly copied from my letter to my mother. I go on to write letters to old friends, teachers, neighbors, and acquaintances. All bearing the same message: blame the capitol. Which will probably be censored out, but we can hope. Eventually I get to tired to continue, and fall into the bed, fully clothed. I get to sleep, almost immediately, considering how soft and fluffy the mattress, blankets, and pillows are. My last thought before I lose consciousness is that this will probably be the last good sleep I get for a while.


	2. 1: Food and Tributes

In the morning I wake up, my clothes are slightly rumpled but I don`t change and go off in search of the dining car. When I find it is filled with the most delicious foods I have ever seen, and there is more food than I have ever seen in one place before. It actually might be more food than I have ever seen before. Period. There are giant bowls of fruit, plates of bagels and toast, heads of biscuits and buns. Vats of steaming hot cocoa and orange juice, Bowls full of different flavors of yogurts. Sausages, and bacon, and ham worthy of Christmas dinner. I fill up a plate and get a cup of hot chocolate and head over to the table, were Kathleen has already dug in. I stuff myself with food until my plate until my plate is nearly bare before starting a conversation.

"You know I would never kill you in the arena, right?" wow, applause to Alek that wins the award for most awkward conversation starter of all time.

"Of course, and I would never kill you" she responds immediately

"Ok, deal, we won`t kill each other"

"I wouldn`t kill you either way, but deal" She says. Ok, one tribute who won`t kill me. Of course, there is no way I`ll be able to appeal to all the tributes, but still I won`t be able to do much to win once I'm actually in the arena, so why can`t I try outside of it?

I eat, like, 4 full plates of the amazing food before I finally get full. That`s more food than I`ve ever eaten in one sitting. even though she`s like half my size I think Kathleen eats even more. Elixa doesn`t make an appearance until 11:30 that morning, when me and Kathleen are sitting on the couch in the TV room watching the reruns of the other reaping's.

"Hello all!" trills Elixa "getting an idea of your competition?!"

"Yes" says Kathleen. I give her look that I hope fairly plainly says never ever respond to anything that women says or you will be stuck with her for hours and hours.

"Oohhh" she squeals "so who looks menacing!?" She says making an expression I think is supposed to look menacing, but ends up looking more like a deformed rabbit. No, that's an insult to deformed rabbits.

"Ok, well I'll leave you to your watching! I have to go beatify myself!" She says. How much more beatifying can she possible do? She`s not pretty, but by the looks of her she`s done about as much as humanly possible to enhance her body. Her skin is so pale it looks almost white, her hair hangs in cherry red ringlets down her back, and her eyes are silvery purple. By the looks of her she was up before all of us this morning, but spent 4 or 5 yours beatifying herself.

So tributes. Kathleen and I have watched all the reapings now, so we know who were up against. I was right, thinking Kathleen would be the youngest person in the arena. There are Three thirteen year olds, the girl from 11, the boy from 9, and the boy from 6. Though by the looks of them, everyone in the arena would have at least a foot on Kathleen. There were 4 who stood out as major competitors. They boy and girl from 2, the boy from 11, and the girl from 8. The ones from 2 are giant; the never suffered from the war, district 2 sided with the capitol. The boy from 11 has giant muscles, and looks like he could probably pick me up without any strain. The girl from 8 is, well, a giant.

Of course, you don`t just win the Hunger Games by being big, I have no idea what any of these peoples fighting skills are like. Another important factor is intelligence, I have no idea how smart and cunning any of these people are. So, in reality I have pretty much no idea what I will be up against in the arena.

**Thank you those who have reviewed, please thought more reviews is always good! sorry for the short chapter, this seemed like a good stopping point.**


	3. 1: The Capitol

The train pulls into a private, underground station later that day. Elixa hustles us across the dark loading port to an elevator. Once inside the elevator she explains to us that we merely his our district number button to get to our floor, and dorms. The fifth floor is completely covered in plush blue carpeting that must have cost more per yard then our house in district 5. This is an indicator of how everything else is: ridiculously fancy and expensive.

"Ok, ok, over to the table I need to explain the schedule!" trills Elixa the minute we enter the floor? Dorm? Room? Prison? Well, whatever to call this temporary home.

"So, this evening you can do whatever you want, tomorrow morning you will display yourself in front of the game makers, and in the afternoon I will couch you for your interview, and then the next day your stylist will prep you for the interview!" she says in a rush.

"Display ourselves in front of the game makers?" I ask, breaking my own rule.

"Well, you get to show them you`re strengths, and they will give you a score out of 12, so sponsors know who is favored in the arena!" She says. How does she talk like that? It sounds like there is an exclamation point on the end of everything she says.

"What if I don`t have any strengths?" asks Kathleen, voicing my concerns.

"Well find some!" she says brightly. Wow. Great advise "well, I have to go prep myself for dinner!" she trills as she flounces out the door.

"How can she prep herself anymore?" asks Kathleen, once again voicing my thoughts.

"I don`t know" I reply

"So, what are you going to show the game makers?" she asks

"I have no idea" I say truthfully

"Neither do I"

"Well, I guess you should aim to score a middle score, because if you score a really high score people will view you as someone who has to be taken down, but if you score a really low score, then people will view you as an easy opponent, who can just be killed off"

"Yah" she says "well, I think I'll go take a nap before dinner, I didn`t really sleep last night"

"Ok" I say. I wander into my room, because I have nothing else to do. The room is full of fancy technological equipment, which you would never find in 5, well except the equipment they use in the factories, but no one ever gets to touch that. I decide that because I have nothing better to do, I will figure out how it all works.

I start at the closet. There is a screen implanted in the wall to one side of the closet. The screen lets me basically design my own cloths, which then appear in the front of the closet. I choose a pair of basic black pants, and a green tee shirt.

I decide to look at the shower later, because I just got dressed, so head over to the bedside table, were there are several interesting objects. The first is a small menu. Instead of having food on it gives instructions to press the red button on the phone, order whatever I want, and it will be delivered to my room. I order a small bowl of fruit, not wanting to ruin my appetite.

"Dinner!" I hear Elixa call from somewhere down the hall from my room. I set down my bowl of fruit, which I have now finished, and head down the hall to dinner. The food is just as amazing as it was at breakfast, and if it is at all possible, I think there might be more. Where does all this food come from? I answer myself. The districts. We live to serve the capitol. And when we get boring, they create the Hunger Games, to make it more entertaining.

In the morning I am waken up by Elixa crowing outside my room. Well, actually I don`t know what to call the sound she is making, but crowing seems pretty accurate.

"Time to get up!" she says, braking her crowing routine, and putting emphasis on every syllable "you have to get ready to display yourself for the game makers!" she trills. I think that women adds an exclamation point to everything she says. How are all these capitol people so happy? Is that how they chose who would live in the capitol when they first made the districts, put all the happy, hyper people in in the capitol? I bet it was. Too bad my ancestors weren`t happy and hyper.

At breakfast Elixa chatters and chatters and chatters about this and that, but mostly about what we are going to show the game makers. She says that that's the only part that won`t be televised, so that's why the give you a score, which they show on TV, and then discuss what you could have done to get that score, and what it means for your sponsors, and your overall adds in the arena. That's another part, what you do in your session with the game makers is kept an absolute secret. This is the only fact I've been glad of since I came to the capitol.

"So, what's your special skill?" Elixa asks

"I don`t have one" I reply

"Oh, come on, you must have a special skill" Elixa badgers

"I swear, I don`t have one" I reply, trying to keep my voice calm and steady

"Oh, but every tribute has a special skill" Elixa keeps badgering

"I. don`t. have. A. special. Skill" I say, through gritted teeth.

"but, you must have just one special skill" she says sweetly, puckering up her up her lips in a way I'm sure is _supposed _to make her look sorrowful, but really just makes her look like a fish. This debate on whether or not I have a special skill has been going on the whole second half of breakfast, before that she was having virtually the same argument, but with Kathleen.

I'm the kind of person who has butterflies. Really, really, really bad butterflies. And right know they feel more like eagles then butterflies. My whole stomach is swirling with nerves, and the rest of me is wracked with them. I'm nearly shaking as we go down the elevator, which was a seemed a whole lot slower yesterday, and as I sit in the waiting room until the deep voice of the head game maker calls me inside. But my nerves don`t explode until I step into the room, and I faint dead away.

**Thank you those who have reviewed, and i`m sorry on the long hold up with updating but i`ve been really busy...**

**this chapter can be a christmas present, considering tomorrow`s christmas eve. :)**


	4. 1: Presentation

Embarrassing enough as it was to have fainted in front of the game makers, and most likely assured myself a score of 0 no matter what I did during my second try, which they were nice enough to give me. The most embarrassing part of the whole ordeal was the fact that I had to be carried out of the presentation room and through the waiting room, past all the other tributes. They had two servants of the Capitol carrying me through the tributes. I repeat that. I was carried through a room full of my enemies, looking utterly helpless.

"I can walk myself" I grumbled, I had already fainted, and was being carried through a room of people who would be trying to kill me in a few days, surly the understood that it would really not help my image to be carried around. By know you must have noticed that I have put quite an emphasis on the word carried. This is important because being carried makes you seem helpless. If I was merely being helped along, it might be ok, I would just be displaying the nerves surly we were all feeling, but I was being carried, and that makes me seem helpless.

"Put me down" I say. I mean it to sound like an order, but I'm afraid I don't sound very convincing, and the two servants definitely don't think I'd o because they have not responded at all to any of my pleas. The two tributes from district 1 were making baby faces, and fake whimpering noises at me.

"Put me down, now!" I say more convincingly. The two servants still haven't said anything but they set me down in a chair in the corner of the room, and then they leave. I wonder why they left me alone, until I see my new caretaker. Oh god. I'm never going to have a good reputation among the tributes. Well, actually I think I already have one. A bad one. Thanks Elixa. Why did district five get stuck with her as our escort, none of the other districts seem to have crazy escorts.

"Hello!" Trills Elixa

"Go away" I say, trying to be firm, but it comes out as more of a mumble. I did faint. It is perfectly expectable to mumble.

"Oh, try to feel better in time of your demonstration," she squeals, and then addresses the other tributes "now, you'll have to leave Alek alone, so he can feel better!" She trills. The other tributes look just as sickened as I feel. Yep, there is definitely never going to be a good image for me in the minds of the other tributes. The district one folks have resumed their baby faces and noises act, but silently from the corner of the room, so Elixa doesn`t notice, and Kathleen is making a sympathetic face at me from the other corner.

In about 25 minutes there are only two tributes left me and the girl from 12. She is another small one. I don't quite remember her from the reaping, bit she's probably 13 or 14.

"I feel bad for you, with an escort like that" she says sympathetically

"yah, well, most of the people here are a bit crazy, but thanks" I say "what's your escort like?"

"Well I'm not really sure, he's pretty young, he's not very responsible. He just came into the dining compartment on the train said, this lot looks too young to win, and left" she says

"That's nice" I say sarcastically

"Yah" she says, snorting

"Isn`t the boy from your district , like, 16 though?"

"Yah"

"Well that's not too young to win, is it?"

"According to our escort it is. According to him no one is going to win unless there 18, giant, and came here knowing how to throw a knife"

"Well you`ll just have to prove him wrong then"

"Yah, like I'm going to win"

"It's not all strength"

"Well, everyone will root for the strongest and biggest opponents"

"Sage Moore, District 12" we here over the loudspeakers, interrupting our debate. The interruption is welcome though, because I don`t think I could have come up with a contradiction to her last comment.

"Well, nice talking to you" I say with I wave, and make a mental note to add her to the list of people I won't kill in the arena. It's a bit funny really. All the little girls are on my list of people not to kill, and all the big giants are on my list of people who are real enemies. I guess the people in the middle are the ones who suffer lack of sponsors, because everyone will send gifts to the little ones, because they feel bad for them, and to the big ones, because they think they could win, but the people in the middle are forgotten.

"You to" she says, returning my wave. She walks out of the room, her dark braid swinging behind her.

Five minutes later I am called out. I walk on to the large room. Along the walls are racks of weapons, and materials to demonstrate survival skills. The middle of the room is full of dummies, shooting ranges, and other settings for demonstrating weapons skills. Suddenly I see something that just might get me a reasonable score. A small collection of throwing knives. I have never thrown a knife before in my life, but in sports classes at school I always had, not to brag, incredible good accuracy.

I walk over and pick up one of the knifes. It's not very heavy, but it isn't nearly as comfortable in my hand as a basket or dodge ball. I turn to a shooting range with a bull's-eye target. I through the knife like a ball and it bounces off the center of the target. I hadn't anticipated the amount of spin that the nice has. I pick up a second one and through it, though with more awareness towards the spin. It lodges into the target just outside the center circle. I through three more, and get two more and get one in the center circle. I wonder what Sage`s escort would say, if he knew I came here able to throw knives, would he think I could win? Thank you for your attendance, it's required to attend the presentation sessions. Maybe she meant thank you for coming back for a second try. I was told that I didn't have to go back for a second try. But I would have gotten a 0 if I didn't go back, so of course I did. So what could she mean?

**Thank you to all readers, reviewers, and followers. this chapter is a bit patchy, because i wrote it and then added more detail in places, but i would love to know what you think. **


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